11.14.09

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Gartner Group and the “Analyst Tax”

Posted in Courtroom, Deception, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 11:29 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“Analysts sell out – that’s their business model… But they are very concerned that they never look like they are selling out, so that makes them very prickly to work with.”

–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]

Summary: Gartner still accused of selling recommendations in exchange for contracts

One of our readers has just asked, “where do Gartner ‘funds’ come from?”

Well, we wrote about Gartner getting sued just about a month ago [1, 2, 3]. A detailed explanation was given on several occasions in order to show that Gartner receives payments from some of the very same companies that it is recommending. Gartner also receives investments (“donations”) from Bill Gates himself.

The following new article introduces a wonderful new phrase, “paying the analyst tax.”

Despite these protestations, whispers remain that the big players’ hefty contributions to Gartner assures, at the very least, a less negative MQ score than they would otherwise receive.

“Whether or not it actually represents ‘pay for play’ is, I suppose, in the eye of the individual,” said Karp. “But it is certainly true that many vendors refer to engagements with Gartner [and its competitors] as ‘paying the analyst tax.’”

So, can we maybe raise money from Free software supporters and bribe Gartner with this “analyst tax” to earn ‘independent’ recommendations? █

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5 Comments

Yuhong Bao said,

November 15, 2009 at 2:27 pm

“So, can we maybe raise money from Free software supporters and bribe Gartner with this “analyst tax” to earn ‘independent’ recommendations?”
Yea, Novell did exactly this with IDC, I think.

your_friend Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
You get better advice here. Is Novell is allowed to do that with the $300 million Microsoft gave them to “agree” about software patents?

Roy Schestowitz Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Well, I was joking there. I thought it was obvious.

your_friend Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
It was.

Roy Schestowitz Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I think Yuhong saw that. And he’s right about Novell playing the payola game with IDC.